So, my parents livr in an area where the only internet available is satellite. It sucks.
However, they also have satellite TV and can watch that no problem.
What’s the difference? Is it just a scale issue where TV has more money and resources compared to satellite internet companies?
In: Technology
Satellite TV is one-way communication. Think like a radio station, they just transmit their music or talk show and everyone can listen. It doesn’t matter how many people are listening, they could have a billion people receiving or zero and they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
Satellite internet is two-way communication. Each user is talking back and forth with the satellite and the more users there are the more demand there is on the satellite for communications. There is a limit to how many people it can talk to before the service starts to degrade. Considering satellites are extremely expensive the company that owns them has a strong incentive to allow as many people use the same satellite as possible since that makes more money back on their investment, and as long as the service isn’t completely unusable people will accept it because they have no other options.
Another thing to consider is the lag time inherent to using satellites. The signal needs to go up to the satellite, then back down to the ground. Potentially it even bounces between satellites in orbit. If that introduces a second of delay then you would never know with TV service; your show being a few seconds behind is undetectable. But with two-way communication of the internet service every interaction experiences that lag. Your computer issues a request and then waits, the satellite sends a response and waits for your reply, etc. All that adds up to a significantly worse experience.
Latest Answers